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Bucket Brigade Training Continues, September 29, 2012

On Saturday September 29, 2012 the Delaware City Environmental Coalition held the second official meeting of it's Bucket Brigade.

The Bucket Brigade is an air monitoring project carried out by Delaware City Residents who have been trained on air sampling technique by world renowned Environmental Justice advocate and founder of Global Community Monitor, Denny Larson. It is funded by a DNREC grant and carried out in collaboration with Main Street Delaware City with the support of the Delaware Sierra Club.

The Saturday meeting was lead by Barbara Dougherty PhD, a licensed Occupational Therapists. She went over the "quality assurance and quality control plan" for the project which included specifying the proper protocol for preparing to take, taking and shipping a sample. We discussed why such precise methods must be followed, went over proper hand washing and sample labeling technique, best times to take a sample and how to confirm the appropriate conditions for sampling are in place.

Included in the training:

Care and cleaning of bucket, what not to clean bucket with

Storage of bucket and bags

What to do when odor is detected (discussion and further education with steps and flow sheet recommended)

Outcomes: additional education for Documentation, and shipping and storage recommended.

Training on these specific measures provide assurance that the samples that are taken will withstand scientific scrutiny of their collection technqiues and chain of custody.

Before taking any sample the Bucket Brigader will call to initiate the "text-tree", confirm with at least one other person that a release seems to be occurring and preferably find a partner to oversee the sampling. Important materials on the buckets, steps to a valid sample and how to log an event on our pollution log sheet even when not taking a bucket sample were distributed.

The 4 Buckets themselves and the small vacuums that power them were also signed out and taken home by meeting participates. Five Delaware City residents and Bucket Brigaders participated in the meeting. Sierra Club staff person, Stephanie Herron was also on hand.